


Belonging

by LtLJ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character of Color, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-07
Updated: 2008-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a mission gone wrong, John is trapped and Ronon is the only one who can go after him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belonging

Ronon knew this was going to be a lousy day. They were on a planet that called itself Derathi, getting ready to take a large group of refugees into Atlantis, and Ronon and Sergeant Benson were walking along the outskirts of the crowd.

The planet itself wasn't helping Ronon's attitude any. The sky was an overcast gray, possibly a permanent fixture, and the jungle beyond the field had tall trees tangled with thorny vines, that gave off the foul odor carried on the breeze. And between the Wraith and the replicators, this was a mission they had done a depressing number of times before.

The two hundred or so ragged exhausted refugees were milling around in the field below the stargate's platform, confused and fearful. They looked like they had come a long way, and from the differences in clothing, they weren't all from the same planets. They had that distinctive look of people who were fleeing cullings, knowing that if they didn't find at least a temporary refuge they would end up webbed to the walls of hive ships as a living larder. That those who got a relatively quick death, who didn't have to watch their families and friends die, who weren't chosen to be tortured for the Wraith's amusement, would be the only lucky ones.

Ronon found himself studying faces, and didn't realize he was staring. Then Benson said, "Watch it, Dex," managing to sound dry and annoyed at the same time.

"Sorry," Ronon muttered, to Benson and the now nervous woman he had been focused on. Trying not to grit his teeth in irritation at himself, he moved along, following Benson. He had a bad habit of staring at people, especially refugees, looking for Satedans. It had taken him a long time to realize that was what he was doing, searching for familiar faces or Satedan tattoos; realizing it didn't mean he could stop doing it, not altogether.

This mission had had a bad start anyway, and Ronon was pretty certain things were going to get worse.

Before they had left Atlantis, they had thought it would all be routine. Sheppard had said, "It's Wednesday, so it must be refugees."

"Is it Wednesday?" Teyla had asked him.

"I have no idea," Sheppard had told her.

"It's not Wednesday," McKay had snapped.

But when they had arrived, the man who had originally contacted them for help, a trader called Ilson who was known to the Athosians, couldn't be found. The group was also much larger and more confused than Ilson had described. Ronon would have sworn half of them were terrified at the idea of going to an unknown planet, which meant they might balk when it was time to go, after the gate was dialed. They would have to find out where Ilson was and how this had happened before they could risk moving these people anywhere.

Ronon could see Sheppard and Teyla on the far side of the crowd now, trying to get sense out of the apparently self-appointed refugee leaders. McKay was up at the gate, waiting impatiently with another Marine team. More groups of Marines were moving around the crowd, watching for traps, and Sheppard had sent Lorne up in a jumper to scan the area. Ronon couldn't read expressions from this distance, but Teyla's normally graceful posture seemed tense, and Sheppard... The angular line of Sheppard's body clearly spoke of what Ronon's old Task Master would have called "insolence." To Ronon it meant that this wasn't going to be settled anytime soon. He had heard about the other times supposedly honest people had asked for help, only to try to kill the Atlanteans. He couldn't believe they still trusted anybody. "This is a joke," he muttered sourly.

"You're in a pissy mood today," Benson commented, sounding just as sour.

Ronon snorted, knowing Benson would interpret that correctly as "you should talk."

Benson was a big quiet guy with a shaved head and dark skin, who had come to Atlantis with the first expedition, which was an important distinction for the Atlanteans. The first time Ronon had helped with a refugee evacuation, there had been several hundred people to move, and Sheppard had put him with Benson, telling Ronon, "You do what he tells you, understand?" It hadn't been very long since Ronon had been classified as a refugee himself, and he had still been in the mindset that nobody could tell him anything, and he resented being put to the test yet again. But Benson had told him a lot, whether Ronon was willing to listen or not. Then Benson had caught a man trying to smuggle in a Wraith stunner that Ronon had missed, and after that Ronon was more willing to listen. The change in his attitude must have been more apparent than he had intended, because Benson's attitude had changed too, making it clear he now saw Ronon as a potential help rather than a burden.

Once they actually started to talk, Ronon found out that Benson had worked both gateroom security and been on a gateteam, and had been assigned to Major Lorne's team by Sheppard with the specific instruction to keep Lorne from getting killed until Lorne "got the hang of Pegasus." He still switched off between security and a gateteam, because he had been guarding the gateroom so long he had trouble leaving the job to someone else. "Remind me to tell you about the time I got turned into an alien mind-controlled zombie," he had told Ronon ruefully.

By then, Ronon had known that wasn't a joke.

It wasn't until after that mission, when the other Marines started to relax around Ronon, to speak to him casually, to come to his fighting practices without anyone having to order them, that Ronon realized it hadn't been a test. It had been a chance for him to get Benson's acceptance, and since Benson's opinion was important to the others, to get their acceptance as well. Sheppard had obviously intended it that way, though he hadn't bothered to explain it to Ronon. Though Ronon figured that if he had been dumb enough to screw it up, he wouldn't have deserved the chance anyway.

It was something his old Task Master would never have bothered to do for a new recruit, and it had shown him yet another side of Sheppard. After this long, he still wasn't sure he had seen all of Sheppard's sides. But after this long, it didn't matter anymore; whatever face Sheppard chose to show, Ronon trusted the man behind it.

_You've got a place again,_ Ronon told himself, as he followed Benson along the outskirts of the crowd. _Not like them._ He just had to justify his good fortune by killing lots of Wraith. Then Ronon caught something out of the corner of his eye: the glint of light on distinctive greenish metal.

"What's that?" Benson said suddenly, his voice sharp. He had caught it too. "Dex--"

"I saw it." Somebody in this part of the crowd had a Wraith stunner and Ronon wasn't sure just which ragged form it was. He started forward, pushing through the refugees, his gun not quite pointed at anyone. Benson covered him from the edge of the crowd, and Ronon heard the click on his headset as Benson tapped his radio to call Sheppard.

Before Benson could speak, Ronon heard Sheppard on the radio channel, saying, "Lorne, come in--"

Benson yelled, "Ronon, down!"

Ronon dived and rolled, covering his head, just as a blast blotted out the world.

***

  
John wasn't sure what was wrong, here. He and Teyla were facing Kallam, the spokesman for the group of refugees. Kallam said, reasonably, "I don't understand what the problem is."

Kallam had been saying that a lot, despite their efforts to explain to him exactly what the problem was. John flicked a look at Teyla, just for confirmation. To anyone who didn't know her, Teyla's expression would have conveyed polite attention; to John it clearly said that she thought these guys were screwing with them and wanted to hit somebody. John agreed. He told Kallam, "We just want to get a few little things straight."

For most of the conversation, John's tone and his stonewalling had been calculated to drive an honest man to rage. But since Kallam wasn't honest, he just nodded seriously and said, "Ask us whatever you wish."

Kallam had an answer for everything, so there was no point to that. It wasn't just that he was too calm; lots of people were calm under pressure, especially in Pegasus, where you were either calm in a crisis or you got eaten by Wraith, period. But John had taken the guy past the point where the most even-tempered Athosian would have punched him in the face. Lorne, up in the jumper running scans, hadn't found anything suspicious, but things were suspicious enough right here.

Over on the gate platform, John saw Rodney waving at him, making impatient Let's Get On With It gestures, while Ramirez, Yamato, and Allston stood stolidly. Ignoring the distraction, John looked at Teyla again. Her expression bordered on the saturnine. She said, deliberately blunt, "Why should we let you into our city?"

One of Kallam's men, a young guy named Lowden, said, "You want trade goods? We can give you--"

Kallam threw Lowden a look that could have peeled flesh from bone. Lowden shut up. Kallam turned back to Teyla, still calm, and said, "You made your agreement with Ilson. We abide by those terms."

_Oh, here we go,_ John thought. _Finally._ He didn't need to exchange a look with Teyla; he knew she had caught it too. She lifted a brow. "Remind me of those terms," she said, dryly.

Kallam's mouth tightened, as he realized his mistake. He said, "I see no need to. We are both aware of them."

Teyla's expression grew even more saturnine and John just smiled. The terms, such as they were, were a temporary refuge on Atlantis' alpha site for Ilson and his group until a new planet could be found for them, or until a team could talk one of the already established refugee worlds into accepting newcomers. If Kallam didn't know that, then he hadn't talked to Ilson, and it was confirmation that Kallam was lying. Confirmation besides John's gut instinct and Teyla's agreement with that gut instinct. John said, "We're going to need to talk this over. We'll get back to you in a minute."

He and Teyla moved back several paces across the wet grass, out of earshot. Teyla half-turned away so Kallam and his men couldn't see her face, and said in a low voice, "I fear Ilson is dead. And that these men are raiders, at best."

"Yeah." And the hell of it was, there was no way to tell how many of these people were in on it and how many had been rounded up or lured here as a distraction. Keeping one eye on Kallam's group, John keyed his radio. "Lorne, come in--"

Then everything went crazy.

John thought something had hit him. Something like a truck, or a boulder. The next thing he knew he was lying on his back. His head hurt, his ears were ringing. _Stun grenade,_ he thought. His vision cleared just enough to see moving figures, still impossibly on their feet. One was Lowden, holding a Wraith stunner in his hand, leaning over Teyla's sprawled form. John made numb fingers move, jerked his P-90 up and fired a short burst. The man's body dropped, but before John could try to sit up, something struck his head. Then the lights went out.

***

  
_Some kind of stun grenade,_ Ronon thought, his ears ringing. Some kind of _Wraith_ stun grenade.

He shoved to his feet. The refugees were mostly on the ground, or staggering half-conscious, except for some on the fringe of the crowd who were running away. There were moving figures near the gate, not wearing Atlantean uniforms. Benson was down, but then it was always the guy that stopped to warn everybody who got it the worst.

Ronon started toward him, just as Benson rolled over, shaking his head. His face was sick and dazed. Ronon demanded, "You okay?"

"Go, go!" Benson waved him on furiously. "Get up there! One of those guys threw the stun grenade!"

Ronon turned, dodging through the confused stumbling refugees. More started to move, to get up, which at least provided him with some cover. He passed two more pairs of Marines, struggling to get to their feet. Ronon was the only Atlantean he could see who hadn't gotten the full force of the stun, and he couldn't figure out how it hadn't taken out the men in rough brown and gray clothing who were now over by the DHD. _Gate-raiders,_ he thought in grim disgust. One of the Marines on the far side of the crowd managed to stand, lifting his P-90 and firing on the raiders. Light flared, making Ronon wince away; one of the raiders turned and fired a stunner at the Marine. _Some kind of shield._ That explained why they had been able to toss around Wraith stun grenades without being flattened themselves. Ronon plunged through the crowd, shouldering people aside, working his way closer to the gate. This was getting worse all the time.

The gate started to dial, the glyphs lighting up around the rim. But just then the jumper dropped out of the clouds, coming in low and fast. It couldn't fire drones without killing half the refugees, but the raiders didn't know that. The Marines furthest from the stun grenade were recovering enough to race toward the DHD, firing on the raiders, hoping to overwhelm their shield. Then a lot of things happened at once.

The blue pool of the wormhole whooshed into existence, just as one of the raiders by the DHD dragged a limp body upright. The black uniform made the Marines stop firing, but they had to be too far away to see who it was. Ronon was nearly to the gate platform's steps and he saw it clearly: it was Sheppard, unconscious. He swore under his breath, and bolted for the platform.

The Atlanteans nearby were just stirring, still too out of it to do anything. Ronon couldn't see Teyla, but McKay lay near Ramirez and some other Marines to one side of the gate, still unconscious. The raiders ran across the platform, disappearing through the stargate, dragging Sheppard with them. Refugees from the crowd surged up the steps, a swirl of confusion as some tried to flee the raiders and others tried to follow. Ronon surged with them, mixing with the crowd, and leapt through the wormhole.

He landed in twilight, on a gate platform surrounded by scrubby winter-dry woods. The wormhole winked out behind him and the refugees were shouting in confusion, the raiders yelling. He couldn't see where they had taken Sheppard. _Crap,_ Ronon thought, knowing he had only seconds before somebody took a good look at him. The fact that he wore wool and leather like everybody else let him blend in temporarily, but somebody was bound realize he didn't belong here. He ducked, shouldering people aside, and jumped off the platform, fading into the underbrush.

***

  
John woke lying face down in cold grass and dirt. His weapons and tac vest were gone, his head was pounding and his stomach was trying to turn. And his hands were chained in front of him. _Oh, hell,_ he thought, weary and bitter. _Here we go again._ He turned his head a little and squinted, trying to see. The light said it was early evening, and he had a dim view of a grassy clearing, surrounded by scrubby brush and nearly leafless trees. It was colder, with a faint bite to the air, and the stench of the jungle vegetation was gone. _Not the same planet._ That thought caused a little spike of adrenaline.

A voice next to him whispered, "Colonel Sheppard?"

John turned his head cautiously, squinting. His vision was still blurry but he could see a man lying next to him, his hands also bound, with blood-matted blond hair and a familiar face. "Ilson," John said, keeping his voice low. "What happened?"

"They came after we spoke to you," Ilson said, sounding sick at the memory. "They took me hostage, and forced my family and the others to cooperate. Other refugees from another world came later, they didn't realize what had happened--"

"I get the picture," John said. Somebody must have talked about Ilson's arrangement to get help from Atlantis, and the word had gotten back to the wrong people, either Genii mercenaries or gate raiders. He told himself it could be worse. "Who are they?"

Ilson grimaced in disgust. "Wraith worshippers."

_It's worse,_ John thought. "Did they get anyone else?"

"No, I saw them bring only you." His voice sharpened. "They're coming."

John felt vibrations through the ground, several sets of footsteps approaching. He half-expected the kick, but not that it would be nearly hard enough to lift him off the ground. It knocked the air out of his lungs and he rolled away, curling around the shooting pain in his ribs. _Yeah, this is going to be a bad one._  
Kallam grabbed him by the hair, jerking his head up. "Atlantean," Kallam said, grinning. "We're very pleased to have you here."

***

  
It was night now, and Ronon had burrowed into tall grass and brush, watching the clearing, his body so taunt with rage that his jaw hurt. He had been able to glimpse Sheppard, see that he was still alive, which was a relief. He and another man were being held in the center of the clearing, too far away for Ronon to make out any detail in the dark. _It would have to be Wraith worshippers._ He hated Wraith, but he fucking hated worshippers.

In the Marines' ready room there was a chart with a bunch of numbers on it. After Ronon had been accepted by the others, Ramirez had explained that one of the xenobioligists had figured out an equation to tell how many human lives were saved every time somebody killed a Wraith. It was just an estimate, Ramirez had told him, because you hardly ever knew things like how many Wraith were on a hive ship or a cruiser, how old an individual Wraith was, how long it would live, and most Wraith ate far more humans than they actually needed to survive, just for the fun of it, because Wraith seemed to get an extra buzz out of human pain and fear. But the scientist had said the estimate was conservative, so it was probably more than this. Ronon had stared at the chart. The numbers were huge. You killed one Wraith, you saved hundreds of lives. Hundreds of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, lovers. And that estimate was "conservative." He had actually felt something inside his heart unclench, and had to walk out of the ready room and stand on a balcony in the cool sea air and warm sun, and take deep breaths.

After that he had had yet another reason to hate worshippers; killing them slowed him down and screwed up the equation.

Something was weird about this group. They were older than they should be; Ronon wouldn't have known they were worshippers except for overhearing how they spoke of the Wraith with greed and reverence. Whoever these worshippers were, their Wraith owners had been generous with other things besides weapons; there was some kind of portable shield over the stargate's platform. The gate had been activating continuously, and Ronon had been able to spot at least one MALP coming through, right before it had been destroyed by the shield. He had heard the worshippers laughing about it, and thought, _dumbasses._ If the Atlanteans were trying to send MALPs through, it was to test the shield, to figure out a way through it. It also meant one of the Marines had seen the gate address, which meant Atlantis knew where this planet was. That meant the _Daedalus_ was probably already on the way.

Ronon didn't intend to wait for it. He wasn't sure what the worshippers meant to do with Sheppard, and he preferred not to find out.

Ronon tensed, sensing movement at the fringes of the clearing. Yeah, they were moving. Silently, he eased to his feet to follow.

***

  
It was funny, in a sick sort of way.

The clearing was lit by torchlight now, because the Wraith had apparently given these people weapons but not anything as practical as flashlights. John was still sprawled on the ground next to Ilson, surrounded by the worshippers. The ones in the back were muttering continuously, angrily, at each other and in general. The ones nearest John and Ilson were mostly shouting at each other. All this formed a counterpoint to the constant drone of the gate, dialing and locking, over and over again.

From what John could tell, the worshippers were supposed to be in Atlantis by now, not standing around here. Somebody had literally jumped the gun with those stun grenades. Then when they had seen the jumper, they had panicked and bugged out. They couldn't even radio through the wormhole to try to get Atlantis to bargain for John's life; the Wraith shield they had over the gate blocked the radio signal. And they couldn't dial out, because Atlantis was continuously dialing into their gate, which pissed them off a lot.

Kallam yelled at the others again, then turned to John. Standing over him, breathing hard, he snarled, "When will they stop?"

John couldn't shrug because his shoulder was too stiff. "I could tell them to stop. Oh wait, I can't, I'm here with you guys."

Kallam leaned down, the light from the nearest torch casting half his face in shadow. John would never have figured any of these people for Wraith worshippers. Kallam had crow's feet around his eyes, lines etched around his mouth. All the others looked normal too, like men and women in their 30s and 40s, with graying hair, weathered skin. Worshippers were always young, almost teenagers, smooth and pretty and perfect; artificially so, since the Wraith gave them bits of the life they stole from the rest of their human cattle. Maybe this group had fallen out of favor with their Wraith masters; maybe that was what had inspired this insane attempt on Atlantis. "You betrayed us," Kallam snarled at John, genuinely furious. "You should have let us into your city, submitted to us!"

The repeated punches weren't helping John's stun headache any, but it was almost preferable to the whining and recriminations from Kallam. "So you could torture us for fun and steal all our stuff, then call the Wraith so they could eat us?" John said, just to be clear.

Kallam gritted his teeth. "Yes. It's our right!"

Like the Wraith, these people felt it was their inalienable right to do anything they wanted to anybody, and felt any resistance on their victims' part was just plain mean. They were gate-raiders, murderers, thieves, and God knew what else, but it was their sense of entitlement that practically rendered John speechless. He had no idea how to respond to anything that stupid. "You're just that stupid, aren't you?" Okay, maybe he did.

Kallam aimed a kick at his head that John jerked away from, catching it on his shoulder. Again. Kallam turned away, shouting. "Get them moving! We'll go to our camp!"

"They'll kill us," Ilson said, and there was almost an edge of hysteria in his voice.

"Yeah, I figured that." John managed to say. He was starting to hurt a lot and the cold ground was making sore muscles stiffen. He couldn't afford to give any hint he hoped the _Daedalus_ was on its way, not where the worshippers could overhear. And there was a big chance it wouldn't arrive in time.

Ilson shook his head, as if John hadn't understood him. "They imitate Wraith." He sounded sick. "They--"

Then Kallam returned, punched John in the head again, and they had no more chance to talk.

Other worshippers dragged John and Ilson upright, and they started off through the woods.

***

  
They walked for a long time, on a narrow track through the woods. Between the pounding headache and the nausea from the stun, the bruises, and trying to balance with his hands chained in front of him, John was mostly concentrating on trying to stay on his feet. The night and flicker of torchlight made everything surreal, casting huge shadows from the winter-dead trees.

At one point, Ilson stumbled near John and used the opportunity to whisper, "My people-- my family -- were on Derathi. Your people would not hold them responsible for what the worshippers tried to do? They would not...commit a rash act?"

"My men don't commit that kind of rash act. Neither does my CO." John just hoped nobody had gotten hurt during the worshippers' retreat. But he had the feeling that if Kallam had had time to kill anybody, he would have bragged about it by now. "They'll be fine."

Ilson nodded, relieved. "Thank you."

It was maybe an hour later that they left the woods, and John realized they were walking through an empty settlement. From what he could make out in the dark, the houses were made of rough stone, big and rambling, with wooden roofs and shuttered windows. They had the look of a suburb, as if there was a larger commercial town over the next hill or so. They passed weedy overgrown gardens, an orchard with fruit rotting on the trees, a broken wooden fence, a pond choked with moss and silt. Whoever had built this place had once taken care of it, and the worshippers were letting it rot. And somehow John couldn't imagine Kallam and his buddies hauling stone and building anything.

John just hoped the inhabitants had escaped before Kallam had moved in. But as the worshippers hauled them across the tall grass toward a large house, he felt something crunch underfoot. Then Ilson stumbled into John; they both looked down to see the torchlight catch a white object that was clearly a human ribcage. Ilson made a noise in his throat, then somebody shoved John from behind and they were moving again.

The worshippers shoved them into the house, into a big stone room. There was a large fireplace at one end, with an iron stove built out of the wall, and a long plank table. Another door led further into the house and a second opened into a stairway. That was the normal part. The part that worried John was the scatter of bones on the floor, and the stench of rotting flesh. A worshipper tripped him and John hit the floor, Ilson landing beside him a moment later.

John managed to struggle into a sitting position as the worshippers gathered around, the ones that couldn't fit into the room peering through the windows. They were more excited than angry, anticipating something. John ignored the cold pit in his stomach and thought, _This is it._

Kallam shoved his way through the crowd and stood over them, red-faced and boiling with anger. The long walk hadn't helped his temper any. One of the other men said, "You said we could have one now. Which?"

Kallam grabbed John by the hair, dragging him up a little. Then he said, "Not this one. Save him for later."

_They imitate Wraith,_ Ilson had said. John put together the bones, the stench of rot in the room, the expressions on the Wraith worshippers' faces, and he knew what that meant.

With his bound hands he punched Kallam in the groin, and grabbed for the knife on his belt. It was a knee-jerk reaction and it didn't do any good. A dozen of them jumped him and slammed him to the ground. John's head bounced off the stone and the crack of pain took his awareness.

It came back too soon, and he realized they were dragging him toward the front of the room. He could hear Ilson screaming. John fought them with everything he had, which at the moment wasn't much. They held him down, put manacles around his ankles, and gagged him when he bit somebody in the arm. They hauled him up, and up, looping the chains on his wrists over a metal hook in the ceiling. John was suspended about three feet off the floor, but at least Ilson had stopped screaming.

He knew they had put him up here to give him a good view, and John had never been so glad for a hard knock to the head. It made everything dim and nightmarish, and the pounding pain in his skull drowned out the noise in the room. _He's dead,_ John told himself, over and over again. _He doesn't know it's happening._ It wasn't like being eaten alive by a Wraith. They couldn't do it just for food; if they had been using up their master's food supply, the Wraith would have killed them before now. It had to be ritual, a way to make them more like the creatures they worshipped.

Consciousness came and went; one moment there seemed to be a lot of people around, the next all but a few were gone. John's arms and shoulders burned and his hands were numb. He felt sweat trickling down his back, and his mouth tasted of blood mixed with the acrid material of the gag. What was left of Ilson still lay on the table.

Then John blinked and Kallam was standing there, looking up at him and smiling. There were two other men in the room, over by the windows.

Kallam said, "Now, perhaps you will tell us something of the Ancient city's defenses. Oh, and the Ring address to find it."

Then across the room, the window shutter behind one of the worshippers silently swung open. A big hand reached through, grabbed the man's hair, and a long blade whipped around to slit his throat. The other worshipper turned that way and staggered back, a throwing knife sticking out of his eye. John hoped like hell that he wasn't hallucinating this.  
Kallam heard the thumps of falling bodies and started to turn, reaching for his knife, but Ronon slung himself through the window and was across the room in one long silent bound. Ronon stabbed Kallam in the throat, and Kallam collapsed with a faint gurgle. Ronon kicked the knife away from his hand, stepped over him, then took a big step up to the top of the stove, bracing himself on the ceiling. He ripped the gag off, then caught John around the waist to take the weight off his arms. John's throat was too dry to even gasp in relief, to say _Thank God_ or _thank you_ or _what took you so long_. Ronon was covered with blood and his face was completely crazy, his eyes wild with fury. John had never been so happy to see anybody in his life.

Grimacing, teeth bared, Ronon bashed at the hook with his sword hilt, then grabbed it and leaned, adding his weight to John's. John felt it give way, and had just enough sense left to relax his legs so he wouldn't break anything when he fell. The hook ripped out of the ceiling and they both tumbled to the floor. Probably Ronon had meant to catch them both but he was off-balance and they collapsed. John's back hit the dirty stone with a breath-taking thump, then Ronon fell on top of him and John was out again.

He came back with Ronon crouched over him, touching his face anxiously, saying, "John, John--"

"Uh," John managed. The chains were off, and his wrists, arms, shoulders were all throbbing with returning circulation.

Ronon still looked crazy, but the fury was mixed with relief now. "I've got to--"

John nodded, and croaked, "Go." He realized Ronon hadn't cleared the house. That wasn't good, but if John had come to that window and seen Ronon hanging there, he would have gone nuts too.

Ronon shoved to his feet, grabbed his gun, and charged for the stairs. John rolled over. Moving his body was like trying to steer a truck with a broken axle. The few muscles that still seemed to be working were inadequate to the job. He had to get over that fast.

He realized they had taken his boots off to get the ankle chains on him. He crawled toward a pile of Ilson's discarded clothes, knowing they would have to run and he was going to need something on his feet.

He shoved through the pile, found his socks and boots, and sat up, fumbling with still-numb hands to drag them on. His feet stung with returning circulation, but the bruises and cuts on his ankles weren't as bad as the ones on his wrists. Distantly, past the heavy stone ceiling, he heard screams, then Ronon's gunfire. _Good. He caught them by surprise._ Sleeping with full bellies, they hadn't heard the commotion down here.

Lying near the pile was a necklace that Ilson had been wearing, a leather thong with a carved stone disk. John shoved it into his pants pocket, thinking he could at least give it to the man's family, when he was lying his ass off to them about how Ilson had been killed during a fight when they had tried to escape. John had those images burned into his brain forever, and he wasn't passing them on to any of the guy's friends.

He flailed to his feet, staggered over to look for weapons.

He couldn't find anything but knives. John's pistol and P90 were lost with his tac vest, wherever it was, and the stunners must be with the other worshippers. He tucked Kallam's knife into his own belt and was standing mostly upright, when Ronon pounded down the stairs.

Breathing hard, Ronon said, "There's more coming. I saw them from the upstairs window."

John just nodded. Ronon threw him a worried look and went to the door. John lurched after him. Ronon eased the door open, snuck a look out, then they were running.

They pelted across a field in the dark, John concentrating on nothing but following Ronon. He stumbled on uneven ground, wet grass pulling at his clothes, and just kept moving.

There were shouts behind them right before they reached the darker shadows of the forest. John ran into trees, ran into Ronon, pushing himself on by force of will and sure knowledge of what would happen if they got caught.

Then Ronon dodged sideways, up some rocks, toward the shape of a big fallen tree. John scrambled after him, slipping in mud and leaf loam. He grabbed for a branch, barely seen in the dark, but his hand slipped off. He could barely keep his grip on the rough bark, and thought this was as far up as he could get. Then Ronon reached back, grabbed his arm, and dragged him up.

John tumbled into a dark space that smelled strongly of damp earth and wood. He crouched on tree roots, saw Ronon moving in the circle of faint light that marked the entrance. He heard thrashing in the brush somewhere below them and went still.

Finally the thrashing moved away. Something touched his arm and John flinched violently, slamming into a packed dirt wall. "Sheppard," Ronon said, low-voiced.

"Huh?" John managed. He realized Ronon had been trying to talk to him, maybe for some moments. Ronon took his arm and gently pulled John toward him.

"You okay?" Ronon sounded worried.

John couldn't answer that one, it was too complicated. Ronon shifted around to sit in front of him. John felt Ronon's big hands in his hair, gently probing his temples, then moving to the back of his head. He found the sore lumpy spot, matted with blood and hair, and John flinched.

"Sorry," Ronon muttered, then more softly, "Crap."

John leaned his forehead against Ronon's leather-covered shoulder, because that seemed a very comfortable position. That was the last thing he knew for a while.

***

  
Ronon felt Sheppard slump against him. He caught his shoulders, easing him down. He touched Sheppard's face and neck, and his skin felt cold and clammy. _Shock,_ he thought. And a hard blow to the head, maybe more than one. When Ronon had looked through the window and seen Sheppard hanging there, seen the mutilated remains of the other prisoner... He wished he could go back and kill the worshipers all over again. Slowly, this time.

Ronon set his jaw, putting that thought aside. The only thing he could do now was get Sheppard warm.

Ronon shifted around, lying down beside him, pulling Sheppard against his chest and tucking him under his coat. Sheppard resisted without really waking, wriggling and trying to shove away. Ronon said, "It's me," and Sheppard subsided, the hard angles of his body softening.

Ronon pulled him in again, trying to make himself relax as Sheppard finally settled against him. This was less awkward than it should have been. Sheppard was tall for an Atlantean, but closer to average height for a Satedan, and he fit comfortably under Ronon's arm. His head was just under Ronon's nose, soft hair tickling. He hoped Sheppard had known somebody was coming for him, he hoped that there hadn't been any doubt.

On Sateda, Ronon had been sitting in that ruin, exhausted, bleeding, waiting for the Wraith, waiting to die. Atlantis had been good while it lasted, but it was over now; he wasn't getting off this dead planet, he wasn't going home. Then Sheppard and Teyla had walked in.

When Ronon had first come to Atlantis, he had tried to hate it, tried to hate the people, tried sometimes to make them hate him. He was angry when they distrusted him, angrier when they trusted him.

Then on a mission Sheppard had said, "Let's go home," and Ronon had thought of Atlantis, not Sateda. He had resented that, too, but had started to wonder at himself. He didn't remember being this man, so angry and resentful that he would be contemptuous of people who had offered him a place in their world, who had tried to be friendly. He had known all those years of running had made him a different person; that was the first time he had realized it had made him into a person he would have called an asshole.

But Atlantis had been turning into a home. Its noise and its silences had become familiar, the people a comfort rather than an annoyance. The stares and curiosity had stopped, and quickly, because the Atlanteans grew used to strange things easier than other peoples Ronon had known. There were nods of acknowledgement, sometimes smiles, and simple acceptance of his existence. And he had reluctantly admitted to himself that his presence there wasn't as big an issue for them as it was for him.

Then Sheppard and Teyla and McKay and Beckett had come for him on Sateda, had done the impossible for him. He had seen them do the impossible for others, but somehow never expected them to do it for him. And something had broken open inside him and he was Ronon again. The Ronon Dex he remembered, not Ronon the runner.

After they had returned to Atlantis, he had gone to Sheppard to try to explain the hate and how it had gone away. Ronon had chosen him because Sheppard was lousy at explaining things himself and was the most likely to excuse any unintentional insult. And Sheppard was the reason he was here in the first place, and Ronon thought he owed him the explanation for his behavior. Sheppard had just said, "Yeah. If you hated the place, and then we threw you out or turned out to be crazy or all died the next day, then it wouldn't hurt. Not that I have any personal experience with that or anything."

That hadn't been the first time Ronon had realized that he and Sheppard had more in common than he had first thought, but it had been the one that meant the most.

***

  
John woke up warm and clutched tightly against someone's chest, remembering only that it was someone friendly. After a moment of cataloging sensations -- the heavy coat he was tucked under, the beard tickling his forehead, the scent of sweat and leather -- he identified it as Ronon. That was a relief. Then he remembered what had happened, and what they were running from. He whispered, "Hey. What's our situation?"

"It's still dark. They haven't come back for a while." Ronon took John's wrist and turned it, and John realized he was looking at John's watch. Ronon hesitated. "You...okay?"

"Yeah." John took a deep breath. He should sit up, try to act normal. Except he didn't seem to be doing that. "What about the others on Derathi?"

"It was a stun grenade. I don't think anybody was hurt." Ronon hesitated again. "I thought you were dead. When I saw you."

"Me too," John admitted. "When I-- Yeah." He tried to make it sound flip, but he found himself taking a deep shuddering breath. He could still see Ilson's death, the blood, the screaming; it was all playing out right behind his eyes. He had seen terrible things before, he knew he would get past it. Eventually. He forced himself to think about something else, like how Ronon had managed to get here. If the _Daedalus_ had brought him, presumably they would both be on it by now and not hiding in a tree. "Hey, how did you get through the gate?"

"When they took you, I followed them."

John thought about the logistics of that, then remembered this was Ronon he was talking to and he shouldn't even be mildly surprised. Still, he had to point out, "You could have gotten shot."

"I didn't." Ronon pushed himself up on one arm. "We need to get moving. They're going to realize they missed us and double-back."

"Right." Moving was easier said than done, but John managed to follow Ronon and climb out of the hollow without falling on his head.

***

  
They had been making their way through the dark woods for nearly an hour when Ronon caught sight of movement ahead. He ducked behind some brush, pulling Sheppard down with him. "Stay here," Ronon whispered. Sheppard had zoned out at least a couple of times, and Ronon wasn't certain if he was all there now.

Ronon eased forward, slipping through the trees until he could take both men out with throwing knives. Then he turned and found himself facing another worshipper, pointing a stunner at him. He grimaced, pissed at himself for making the mistake.

The guy said, "Who are you? You're not Atlantean. And you should know better than to resist us."

Ronon could never think of a good line in these circumstances. He could always say "I'm your worst nightmare" but he had seen enough movies from Earth to know that that was a little trite, though he still liked it personally. So he just watched Sheppard grab the guy from behind and stab him in the kidney. As the guy collapsed Sheppard, sounding genuinely angry, said, "He is an Atlantean. I did the paperwork myself."

Sheppard was half out of his head, but that still gave Ronon a warm glow in his heart. Before he blurted anything stupid and emotional, he just said gruffly, "Let's go."

***

  
After that, things got floaty and vague for John again. His vision was blurry and he couldn't think straight. He followed Ronon, just trying not to pass out, throw up, or bleed to death, or any combination of the three.

He came back to himself a little to realize they were crouched in scrub brush, that the daylight was bright enough to make his head pound even worse than it already was, that Ronon was having a tense whispered conversation with somebody on his headset. Something about the _Daedalus_ not being able to beam them up, that there was interference, maybe from the same device that was shielding the gate.

Worshippers were closing in on them and John knew they had had it, then he heard P-90 fire. He looked up in time to see Colonel Carter plunge over the hill and slam a worshipper in the head with the butt of her P-90. Teyla, Benson, Ramirez, and Audley were right behind her, and suddenly the worshippers were scattering, the ones stupid enough to charge the Marines falling under their gunfire.

Carter hit her radio. "Lorne, now!"

John looked up, saw a jumper shimmer into existence in mid-dive. It landed with a thump barely twenty paces away.

John shoved to his feet, Ronon's hand wrapped around his arm, and ran with him to the jumper. They piled inside, Carter and the Marines last, as the ramp started to close. Rodney was already inside, and Lorne was at the controls. John grabbed the overhead rack to steady himself as the jumper lifted off. Everybody was staring at him. He realized that between the dried blood, the bruises, and the raw red marks on his wrists, he must look pretty bad. He felt pretty bad.

"Are you all right?" Rodney demanded, staring at him in horror.

"I'm fine," John assured him, then found himself sliding down onto the floor of the jumper. Rodney grabbed his arm and Teyla stepped in and caught his slumping body, easing him down, keeping him from hitting his head again. Sprawled between them, half in Teyla's lap, John decided maybe he shouldn't try to stand up.

Carter leaned over him, asking Ronon, "Where is he hurt?"

"Got hit on the head," Ronon reported. Then added succinctly, "A lot."

"Colonel," John said, squinting to keep Carter in focus. "Ilson's dead. Did you find his family?"

"Yes," she told him, "They're fine. They were with the other refugees. The worshippers told them they'd kill Ilson if anyone tried to warn us."

John pulled the necklace out of his pocket and put it into her hand. "Don't tell them what really happened."

Carter exchanged a worried look with Teyla, and said reassuringly, "I won't."

"What the hell did happen?" Rodney asked, frustrated, but John was already drifting off. The next thing he knew, they were in the jumper bay. Ronon scooped him up, one arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees, and put him down on a stretcher before he had a chance to protest.

***

  
In the infirmary, Ronon sat impatiently through the usual scanning and poking, and let Dr. Sayyar give him antibiotic shots for the cuts, then finally got released to go see Sheppard.

He didn't get to see much of him.

Sheppard was in the other bay, stretched out on a table, mostly obscured by Keller and what seemed like a dozen nurses and techs, with a big scanner unit hovering over him. A determined nurse, who was unimpressed when Ronon snarled at her and seemed to have no awareness that he was three feet taller than she was, backed him away into the waiting area. Walking backwards, he bumped into something, turning around to find Teyla looking up at him. She said immediately, "He will be fine. They say it is not as bad as it looks. That scanner is better for examining the brain and nervous system."

"They're experimenting on him," McKay said sourly. He was planted in a chair, still wearing his tac vest, clutching a mug of coffee.

"Rodney," Teyla said, sounding tired. She took one of the chairs, sitting down. "That does not help."

"It helps me," McKay said, grumpy and reassuringly familiar.

Carter had rearranged two chairs so she could sit in one and prop her feet on the other. She had unzipped her vest and looked rumpled and weary, and there was a smudge of dirt and blood on her forehead. She squinted up at Ronon worriedly. "Are you okay, Ronon?"

"Yeah." Ronon sat down. He knew he would have to report soon, and he didn't mean to say anything now. Teyla was watching him with warm concern. Carter had fought personally to get them back, another thing his old Task Master would never have done. McKay was eyeing him anxiously. "It was...bad," Ronon found himself saying, and then he found himself telling them the whole story.

Teyla's expression shuttled between concern for Sheppard and Ronon and rage at the worshippers. Carter's face turned hard; she wasn't shocked or surprised, just taking it in as one more thing they had to worry about and account for. McKay looked sick and horrified. In a strained voice, he said, "Why would-- Why the hell would they-- Oh God, don't anybody try to answer that, I don't want to know. You both got out of there, that's all that matters."

Ronon just nodded, and slumped in his chair. He felt better for having told them, he wasn't sure why. Sharing the horror to make it bearable, maybe.

Teyla tilted her head, in a distinctly predatory way. She said to Carter, "We cannot leave these creatures free to do this again."

Carter shook her head, and for a moment Ronon thought she would say they would do nothing. Then she said, "We set up one of the extra gates left over from the Midway project with the program to continuously dial their gate. I don't see any reason to stop it."

They all stared at her. She shrugged. "The power source'll only last a couple of hundred years. If they're smart, they'll take up farming."

Ronon leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and smiled.

They sat there for a time. Lorne came by to see how Sheppard was doing. People from the science team started to call McKay on the radio, all demanding to know what had happened. Keller came out to tell them again that Sheppard would be fine, but that he still wasn't awake. Ronon was aware that things were getting vague, that it was harder for him to focus.

"You should get some rest," Teyla said at one point. "How long has it been since you slept?"

Ronon snorted derisively, to cover up the fact that he couldn't remember what day it was. Then sometime later he woke just in time to save himself from falling out of the chair. With ironic emphasis, McKay said, "Right, that's all we need, another head injury." Ronon decided he should at least go take a shower to wake himself up. He went to his quarters.

He took a shower, scraping away the grime and dried blood, and put on clean clothes. Then he decided to lie down on the bed for a few minutes.

He woke ten hours later.

It was night. Outside the uncurtained window, both moons reflected off the dark sea. Flustered, he checked his radio but nobody had left him any messages. He thought that if anything terrible had happened, somebody, Teyla, McKay, or Carter, would have tried to call him. He could have called one of them, but if nothing terrible had happened, they were probably all asleep. And he just wanted to see Sheppard for himself.

He went down to the infirmary and found it quiet. Ronon went back and forth between the bays, checking the occupants of various beds, but none of them was Sheppard. He dodged the nurses who tried to ask him what he was doing, until Jennifer caught up with him. She whispered, "Ronon, Ronon! Colonel Sheppard's out on the balcony. He's fine."

"Oh." Ronon halted, uncertain.

She prodded him toward the back of the infirmary. "I'm just keeping him overnight for observation. You can see him for a minute but then you need to let him rest, okay?"

Ronon mumbled something that might have been interpreted as "okay" but that he didn't feel obligated him, and headed for the balcony.

The glassed-in terrace was used for a break room for the medical staff, and to give the patients a place to sit where they could see the ocean and the sky. There were chairs and potted plants, and round milky lights that gave a soft radiance that echoed the moons. The light didn't hide the view of the night sky arching overhead, or the towers and piers and the limitless sea beyond them.

Sheppard was sitting there, his attention on his PDA, his bare feet propped in another chair. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a darker gray t-shirt, and looked completely normal, except for some scratches, a black eye, and the fist-shaped bruises on his cheek. It was a relief to see.

Sheppard glanced up, startled, then smiled. "Hey. I thought you were Keller."

Ronon took a chair, turned it so he could sit and brace his arms on the back. He nodded toward the PDA. "Are you supposed to have that?"

"Nah. Rodney smuggled it in for me." Sheppard eyed him a moment. "You okay? They said you weren't hurt, just worn out."

"I'm okay." Seven years of running had left Ronon worn out, but he suspected maybe he was getting over that now.

"Good." Sheppard looked down, and his brow knit, but his voice sounded the same when he said, "Carter said you told her what happened."

"Yeah." Sheppard obviously didn't want to talk about it yet. Knowing Sheppard, he might never talk about it, except for the bare facts needed for the report. But at least he would know that Ronon had seen part of it. That one other person understood. Ronon had realized lately that that really did help. But there was one more thing he had to do, and he hoped it didn't change anything. "I have to tell you something."

Sheppard looked up, gauged his expression, and put the PDA down. He said, warily, "Okay."

Ronon said it before he had a chance to change his mind. But he didn't want this between them anymore. "The first year I was here, when I went to Belka with Teyla. I found Kell there, my Task Master from Sateda. I killed him."

Sheppard nodded. "Yeah, you told me that already."

Ronon sat there for a minute, trying to process that. Pretending to know already might possibly be Sheppard's way of dealing with the situation. He said skeptically, "I did?"

"Yeah." Sheppard shifted around in the chair and winced. "When you were on the Wraith enzyme. They gave you guys too much one day, and things got a little...freaky."

Freaky. Ronon narrowed his eyes, suspecting a joke. Then he had a flash of memory: in the caves Ford's men had used as a base, pinning Sheppard to a wall and confessing everything he had done wrong since arriving in Atlantis, possibly while mumbling into Sheppard's hair. He managed, "Uh."

"I wasn't going to say anything about it. You were, you know." Sheppard waved a hand beside his head, apparently indicating some advanced state of mental illness.

"Uh." Ronon put his head down on his arms. When he looked up, Sheppard had picked up the PDA again. He had the expression, the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth, that meant that he thought this was hilarious. Ronon sighed, and pushed to his feet. "Well, that was what I wanted to say."

"Okay." Still focused on the PDA, Sheppard said, "Don't kill old Task Masters again without clearing it first with me or Carter. And Ronon." He looked up, suddenly awkward, as Sheppard always was when he was about to say something he really meant. "Thanks. We're lucky to have you here."

"Yeah, me too," Ronon managed, then grinned and walked away.

  
**end**


End file.
